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Roy Doty Cartoons

An inventory of his cartoons at Syracuse University


Finding aid created by: KBP
Date: 25 Apr 1979

Biographical History

Roy Doty (1922-2015) was an American cartoonist and illustrator, with a career spanning more than sixty years.

Doty grew up in Columbus, Ohio and served in World War II as a cartoonist. After the war he moved to New York City where he began his career as a freelance cartoonist. He wrote and drew the Laugh In strip for three years in the 1960s, and his Wordless Workshop, published in Family Handyman, has been running for more than 50 years. Doty illustrated more than 170 children's books, wrote 27, edited several monthly newsletters including a children's newsletter for the American Institute for Cancer Research, and was published in venues as diverse as the New York Times, Field & Stream, Popular Science, the London Daily Mail, and Elle Magazine. Doty's artwork has appeared on packages, book covers, and advertising; his clients included Black and Decker, Buick, the Copper Council, Ford, Macy's, Minute Maid, Mobil Oil, Perrier, Safari Club International, and Texas Instruments.

Doty was recognized numerous times by his peers, including a six-time recipient of The National Cartoonists Society's award for Advertising Illustration (1967, 1970, 1978, 1989, 1996, 2005). He also received an award for illustration of greeting cards from the National Cartoonists Society in 1994.

Dory died in March 18, 2015, age 92.

Scope and Contents of the Collection

The Roy Doty Cartoons collection consists of original artwork and some published drawings.

The Original artwork series comprises the bulk of the collection. The series is subdivided into the following: book illustrations, magazine cartoons and newspaper cartoons. Book illustrations are arranged alphabetically by book title and some also include cover art. Th illustrated titles in the collection include: Instant Dog: The Quick and Easy Way to Produce a Family Dog, Elinor Goulding Smith's The Complete Book of Absolutely Perfect Baby and Child Care, Letters to Paul Baby, with a letter concerning Paul Baby illustrations and more.

The subseries magazine cartoons contains original artwork from several publications, including: Charm, Golf, Look, The New Republic, Woman's Day, Woman's Home Companion, Ski magazine as well as others. The series also has original art from Family Circle and Family Weekly, including illustrations for Family Weekly poetry. Miscellaneous art in this series contains art for Macy's advertisements and other unidentified cartoons featured in magazines.

Newspaper cartoons, another subseries, includes original daily and Sunday panels from the comic strip Laugh In (1968-1970) and over 500 original cartoons from The New York Times (1948-1966).

Printed material consists of one item for The Compleat Dissenter, an United clipping from The Christian Herald and miscellaneous artwork. The miscellaneous art includes cartoon proofs and a printed illustration, most likely from The Herald Tribune's Today's Living and Look magazine.

Arrangement of the Collection

The collection is arranged by series. Similar material is often not housed together due to size. At times, items were left in their original order, such as many of the book illustrations, as opposed to being organized in alphabetical or chronological order.

Restrictions

Access Restrictions:

The majority of our archival and manuscript collections are housed offsite and require advanced notice for retrieval. Researchers are encouraged to contact us in advance concerning the collection material they wish to access for their research.

Use Restrictions:

Written permission must be obtained from SCRC and all relevant rights holders before publishing quotations, excerpts or images from any materials in this collection.

Related Material

The book Instant Dog: The Quick and Easy Way to Produce a Family Dog featuring illustrations by Roy Doty was removed from the collection and transferred to Rare Books.

Special Collections Research Center has collections of more than 150 cartoonists. Please refer to the SCRC Subject Index for a complete listing.

Subject Headings

Persons

Doty, Roy, 1922-

Subjects

American wit and humor, Pictorial.
Caricatures and cartoons -- United States.
Cartoonists -- United States.
Illustration of books.
Illustrators -- United States.

Genres and Forms

Cartoons (humorous images)
Illustrations.

Occupations

Cartoonists.
Illustrators.

Administrative Information

Preferred Citation

Preferred citation for this material is as follows:

Roy Doty Papers
Special Collections Research Center,
Syracuse University Libraries

Acquisition Information

Gift of Roy Doty, 1967-1971.

Table of Contents

Original artwork

Printed material

Inventory